Palm Sunday 2021 St. James Anglican Church Service

Palm Sunday 2021 Service

Celebrant Fr. Anthony Velez

Fr. Carlos Raines

Preacher Fr. Dale Matson

Deacon Anna Hearn

https://www.stjas.org/sermons.html 

Palm Sunday Year B 2021

Fr. Dale Matson

“Gethsemane and the Via Dolorosa”

Spring has arrived and our Golden State of California is green. Unfortunately, the rain will soon end and there is an anticipatory sadness that this season will give way to a parched golden hue in a matter of weeks. Palm Sunday has that same anticipatory sadness as our California Spring. Even though we carried palms into the church today, we realize this joy and jubilation will be as short lived as our California spring. 

Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to adoration and great fanfare.  We are always hopeful yet we know the outcome, don’t we? Then we begin the passion narrative. We say to ourselves, “How can this be? How could things have gone so tragically wrong so quickly”? From his triumphant entry we now see Jesus in Gethsemane nearly dead from sorrow and literally sweating blood. He went to his closest friends Peter, James and John three times asking for their prayer and companionship yet they remained asleep. Even among his best friends, He was so alone there. Have you been there too? Many of us elderly can put ourselves in His place. We are very much aware that we will soon die and we are all at the point where we need to say as our Lord said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to thee; remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but thou wilt.” My traditional Jesus prayer before falling asleep has been replaced by, “…to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8b)

  As I was preparing the homily, I noticed for the first time that Jesus actually prayed this prayer more than once. His decision to die was even harder than I had once thought. “And again, he went away and prayed, saying the same words. He made his decision to do His Father’s will and it cost him his earthly life. Wasn’t His decision the climax and what came after that the falling action?

From here things became increasingly worse with his friend Peter denying three times that he even knew him. Peter was afraid for his own life. All his boldness he expressed before was gone.  And we say to ourselves, “How can this be?” There is a betrayal by Judas, followed by an arrest and false accusations by the religious leaders. 

And thus, begins “the Via Dolorosa the final walk that Jesus took before he was crucified. Today, along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, there are the 14 Stations of the Cross that mark when Jesus was condemned to death, where he carried the Cross, and where he was crucified, died and buried. It is not just one road, but a route that winds along a collection of streets. The walk is less than kilometer long (about half a mile) and contains the 14 Stations of the Cross. It ends in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where the final 5 Stations of the Cross are located. Via Dolorosa means ‘The way of suffering’ or ‘the path of sorrows’ in Latin. Via Dolorosa is sometimes more commonly known as ‘The Way of the Cross’ (Via Cruxis).” https://24hourslayover.com/via-dolorosa-via-della-rosa/

There is a mock trial followed by severe and humiliating beatings and a murderer Barabbas is set free instead of an innocent and perfect man. The crowd yells, “Crucify him” and we say to ourselves, “How can this be? Where are all the people who would defend him? Why aren’t they yelling, “Free Jesus”. He is even forced to carry his own cross on which he will be crucified. His garments are taken from him and he is left in his nakedness, to hang on the cross in front of his friends and mother. Some of you folks may wonder where Joseph was at but it is a safe conclusion that he had already died. In fact, Jesus asked the disciple he loved, John to care for his mother. After his death he was taken down and placed in another man’s tomb. 

Now let us examine the first portion of our Epistle lesson. 

5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9

And this is the lesson of Lent for us that we have the mind of Christ.  And what is that mind? It is the mind of Obedience, Humility and Self Denial. We must be obedient to our Father in Heaven. If He gives us His Gifts then we must step out in faith and obedience to use them for the good of his body the Church. We too must be obedient to the point of our own death. This is the death of selfishness and self centeredness.  We are called to serve others.  We must be humble. When we think or do something is it for our glory or God’s glory? Can we do the good work unseen? Can we give that gift anonymously?  

And where is the hope we hold so closely to our hearts in this season of Lent?  It is coming, my brothers and sisters. It is coming. We hold out our hope as Jesus enters the gates of Jerusalem yet we know tragedy and unspeakable injustice await the Lamb of God.  We know this is not the time. This is not the place. He has been humbled, humiliated, crucified and placed in a tomb and WE WITH HIM.  Yet calling to us from the Old Testament the prophet Isaiah offers us hope and comfort that our salvation will be available.  Our salvation is not from God, it is God Himself.

We hear this from our Old Testament Lesson.

“Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” 

I was laying on the couch the other day feeling sorry for myself because I have experienced so much trauma during my life. In the book, The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk, he stated that trauma remains in the body and changes our responses to the world. If not properly treated, trauma causes us to mistrust others, to be hypervigilant, to suffer from anxiety and depression. Trauma can even cause digestive disorders. I was wondering if I could ever find peace from trauma and in this life. As I was laying there, St. Paul’s verse came into my mind. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” When I hear, “…with his stripes we are healed.” It reminds me of St. Paul’s passage in 2nd Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” By his stripes, you are healed. 

To be joined to Christ one can be released from the trauma you experienced. Because of Christ we can say what Peter Gabriel said in his song Darkness, “I have my fears but they don’t have me.” Can we understand that? 

I think one message of the passion narrative, is betrayal, abandonment and enormous physical trauma for our Lord. He saved us from sin and death and experienced first-hand what all of us have or will experience. His death on the cross means more to me every year. For many, perhaps most of us, our own journey has been a Via Dolorosa, a journey of suffering more than a Pilgrimage. In No Country For Old Men, Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) visited his cousin Ellis who was wheel chair bound from a criminal’s bullet. He is a lot like us with this comment. “All the time you try and get back what been taken from you, more is going out the door. After a while you just try to get a tourniquet on it.”

Philippians 2:5-11 (New King James Version)

The Humbled and Exalted Christ

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  

And what we have here is the marvelous testimony by the Old and New Testament witness of God and Jesus Christ as God, that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is our Salvation and there is no other. We look with hope through the eyes of faith, having been crucified and buried with him, that we too will follow him up from his lowly borrowed grave to the heights of Heaven. Amen.

Bishop’s Note: Commendation

Bishop Eric Menees

Bishop’s Note: Commendation

Dear brothers and sisters,  I pray that this Bishop’s Note finds you safe and well! Today we are continuing our examination of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer’s Pastoral Rites section. Last week, as we examined the Burial of the Dead we looked at the Eucharist, today we look at the Commendation. The Commendation is both old and new to Anglicanism. In the medieval period the part of the service immediately following the Eucharist was referred to as the Absolution of the Dead. It was a time for prayers asking God to forgive the sins of the deceased. This whole idea was tied into the medieval notion of purgatory and indulgences, that people should give financially and pray for the forgiveness of the sins of their loved ones who have died. In Anglicanism they softened it significantly in the first BCPs, becoming a prayer where it was acknowledged that God forgives sins. Eventually even that prayer was removed, and for much of its history Anglicanism hasn’t had a similar prayer in this section. In the 20th century Anglicanism started to return prayers to that section of the burial and the Roman Catholic Church significantly changed their liturgy to remove the Absolution and replace it with a Commendation, going the same direction as Anglicanism. Eventually it got to the point that both Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism have a prayer for Commendation here. Rather that being a prayer where we ask God to forgive the sins of the deceased, this is a section where we commend or entrust the deceased to God. It’s also a time to remember that as Christians, our stories don’t end with our death. The petitions during the Commendation ask “Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints.” It’s not rest as in sleep, it’s rest in the sense of comfort in anticipation. In a sense the souls of the faithful are in a rest stop before the resurrection and final judgement to come. I pray you all a blessed Palm Sunday!

T H E  C O M M E N D A T I O N The Officiant and other ministers take their places at the body.

Officiant All Officiant All Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints, Where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting. You only are immortal, the creator and maker of mankind; and we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return. For so did you decree, saying, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

Lent 4B 2021 St. James Anglican Church Service

Lent 4B 2021

Celebrant Fr. Anthony Velez

Preacher Fr. Carlos Raines

https://www.stjas.org/sermons.html

Bishop's Note: Eucharist

Bishop Eric Menees

Dear brothers and sisters, 

I pray that this Bishop’s Note finds you safe and well! Today we are continuing our examination of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer’s Pastoral Rites section. Last week, as we examined the Burial of the Dead we looked at the Prayers of the People, today we look at the Eucharist.

This is one of the things that’s optional during the burial. Many burials these days don’t have the Eucharist, but having the Eucharist in a burial is a powerful support and reminder of God’s presence. Dom Gregory Dix speaking about the Eucharist said,

Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth.

He then goes on to list all of the situations that the Eucharist has been there for, coronations of kings, little country churches, etc. His whole point is that in situations of need throughout its history, the church has turned to the Eucharist. That’s not just because it’s a beautiful ceremony, but because it’s in that sacrament that we have communion with God, and through him the others in the body of Christ. Nothing in a Christian burial shows us the hope we have as Christians, gives us the strength and grace we need, or reminds us that we’re not alone, like the Eucharist.

AT THE EUCHARIST

The liturgy continues with the Peace and the Offertory. An offertory hymn or anthem may be sung.

The Proper Preface of Burial is used (page 156).

POST COMMUNION PRAYER

The following Post Communion Prayer is used

Almighty God, we thank you that in your great love you have fed us with the spiritual food and drink of the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ, and have given us a foretaste of your heavenly banquet. Grant that this Sacrament may be to us a comfort in affliction, and a pledge of our inheritance in that kingdom where there is no death, neither sorrow nor crying, but the fullness of joy with all your saints; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Lent 4B 2021 St. James Anglican Church Service

Lent 4B 2021

Celebrant Fr. Anthony Velez

Preacher Fr. Carlos Raines

https://www.stjas.org/sermons.html

Bishop's Note: Prayers of the People

Bishop Eric Menees

Dear brothers and sisters, 

​

I pray that this Bishop’s Note finds you safe and well! Today we are continuing our examination of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer’s Pastoral Rites section. Last week, as we examined the Burial of the Dead we looked at the Apostle’s Creed, today we look at the Prayers of the People.

The Prayers of the People have been a part of our Anglican worship since before the Reformation, but they’ve changed quite a bit in recent years. This section is where the congregation as a whole lifts their individual concerns before God, but for the longest time the prayers were said by the priest with the people praying together silently. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the first to have multiple options for the Prayers of the People, and rather than the celebrant the prayers were to be led by a deacon or lay leader. Many of the options also had spoken responses by the congregation as a whole. This really drives home that the prayers aren’t just being offered by the priest celebrating the Eucharist, they’re the prayers of the congregation as a whole, as one body.

These prayers differ from the normal ones to reflect the needs and concerns a congregation has during a funeral. They’re not just about entrusting the deceased to God, they’re a recognition of exactly what’s happening in this situation and how the promises of God speak to it. The Christians gathered for this funeral aren’t a few individuals coming together unaware of what lies ahead, they’re a smaller portion of the larger body of Christ who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. Whenever we forget that, praying through these prayers is a great way to remember the hope we and all our fellow believers have as Christians!

I pray you all a blessed Fourth Sunday in Lent!

The Prayers of the People

The Deacon or other person appointed says the following or other appropriate prayers.

Let us pray, saying, “Hear our prayer.”

Almighty God, you knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord: Grant, we pray, to your whole Church in heaven and on earth, your light and peace.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Grant that all who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection may die to sin and rise to newness of life, that through the grave and gate of death we may pass with him to our joyful resurrection.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Grant to us who are still in our pilgrimage, and who walk as yet by faith, that your Holy Spirit may lead us in holiness and righteousness all our days.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins, and serve you in faithful obedience.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Grant to all who mourn a sure confidence in your fatherly care, that, casting their grief on you, they may know the consolation of your love.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand, to believe and trust in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection to life everlasting.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Grant us grace to entrust N. to your never-failing love; receive him into the arms of your mercy, and remember him according to the favor which you show to all your people.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Grant that, increasing in knowledge and love of you, he may go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in your heavenly kingdom.

Reader Lord, in your mercy:

People Hear our prayer.

Silence may be kept.

The Officiant concludes with the following or some other prayer

Almighty God, grant us, with all who have died in the hope of the resurrection, the fullness of life in your eternal and everlasting glory, and, with all your saints, to receive the crown of life promised to all who share in the victory of your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Lent 3B 2021 Church Service Saint James Anglican Church

Lent 3B 2021

Celebrant Fr. Anthony Velez

Preacher Fr. Dale Matson

Deacon Anna Hearn

https://www.stjas.org/sermons.html

Lent 3B 2021

  

Lent 3B 2021

Fr. Dale Matson

Disordered Affections

My homily today is based on our opening collect, our Epistle Lesson and our Gospel lesson.

Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you: Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections, that we may behold your eternal glory in the face of Christ Jesus; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Let’s examine our opening Collect a little more closely. Have you ever wondered why you are here? Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Have you heard this comment before? Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Our Collect continues, “…Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections. St. Augustine, struggled with disordered affections and discussed his problems with lust at length in his Confessions.

St. Ignatius, coined the term “disordered affections” and founded the Jesuits also struggled with disordered affections. “St. Ignatius longed to sacrifice himself for a great king, serve faithfully a beautiful lady and win immortal fame in the eyes of the world. His early adult life was marked by gambling, womanizing and fighting. He longed to prove himself in battle.” https://www.stmarymagdalen.org/Catholicism/Saints/StIgnatius.htm 

In a battle his leg was struck by a cannonball and during his convalescence at his sister’s house, “The only two books in the house were one on the life of Christ and the other on the lives of the saints. As he read these books, St. Ignatius’s heart was gradually transformed. He became ashamed of the vanity, pride and lust that ruled his life. While recuperating, St. Ignatius underwent a conversion.” [Ibid]

“…He began writing what later became the Spiritual Exercises (one of the classics of Western spirituality). The Spiritual Exercises lay out a program (usually for thirty days, in solitude) of examination of conscience, contemplation, meditation based on a vivid representation of scriptural events and discernment of God’s will in one’s life.” [Ibid]

The four weeks focus on sin, the life of Christ, the passion of Christ and the resurrection and ascension of Christ. I commend The Spiritual Exercises as a possible devotional during lent.

For both St. Augustine and St. Ignatius, the road to sainthood was paved by putting on the mind of Christ. They practiced holiness daily.

Saintliness is often behavioral. If you are doing what you believe God wants, then you avoid sinning. As we confess in the Ancient Text service, “…have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen. (p.130) Ouch! I must confess that I more often acquiesce to God’s will than delight to do it.  

I believe Eve fell prey to disordered affections. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” (Gen. 3:6)

“Disordered attachments are those things (objects, experiences, activities, even other people) who become the focus of our desires and, consequently our time on this earth, rather than seeking the will and companionship of God.” https://itoccurstome.net/2016/10/29/disordered-affections/

From the fall of humans until the Law was given, people did not know what was right and what was wrong. The Law gave them boundaries and with those boundaries, they became free from uncertainty and confusion. When the Law is rejected, people lose sight of what is the proper conduct. For those of us who embrace the Law of God and we know what the right thing to do is, we have trouble doing the right thing even though we know that we should. The past behavior has become so firmly established because we have done it over and over again that our will to change cannot overpower the sin that has become ingrained in our being. That sin has become a part of our nature. Eventually we get to a point where we want to stop sinning but we no longer can resist sinning because we have done it so often for so long. We are stuck in a rut. It is having the will power to not misbehave but not having the “won’t power” to stop misbehaving. Dealing with sin requires turning our will over to God. Paul talked about our human struggles in today’s Epistle lesson from Romans Chapter seven. “If I could only do those things I want to do and not do those things I don’t want to do.” Once we decide to quit doing something, we have to overcome the momentum of how we have acted in the past. Our sins are not just outward actions. Our sins change our inner nature.

We have committed some sins so often; they have become a part of who we are. They are a part of our identity. Someone who drinks too much becomes a drunk. That is how they are known and it is a real identity crisis to quit drinking because it would be giving up a part of your identity even though it is an ugly part. People who know us expect us to act like a drunk. They can even unconsciously help us remain a drunk and that is called “enabling”. That is also why it is difficult to love the sinner and hate the sin because the sinner can become so immersed in their sin; it is no longer a behavior. It is a character defect. C.S. Lewis once said that chronic grumblers become grumbles.

What St. Paul is saying in Romans seven is that the Law is good but the Law cannot make men good. The Law tells us what is right and what is wrong. We do not decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. The Law does not empower us to stop doing the wrong thing and start doing the right thing. That is where we ask for God’s empowerment. We affirm this in our baptismal vows. The bishop asks, “Will you resist the devil and all rebellion against god?” We respond, “I will with God’s help.”

On those occasions where we experience guilt there is only one healthy response. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). Guilt is a symptom of sin, with sin as the underlying illness. For us, there is the weekly confession of sin and there is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. After the confession, we hear the following from the BCP, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive you all your offenses; and by his authority committed to me, I absolve you from all your sins: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (p 224)

I have had several besetting sins in my life. Perhaps the best way to describe them is that the sins can occupy and consume our thoughts. One of my remaining sins is fear. My fear of flying is a specific problem that kept me from flying for twenty-five years. Fear can control your life. To the extent sin controls your life it diminishes it. Christ said, “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10). 

So what is our spiritual firewall? How do we keep the accuser out? We are called to live a holy life. We are called to be a holy people. Our spiritual firewall is Virtue. In the King James Version of Holy Scripture it states that when a woman with a bleeding problem touched Christ, she was healed and He felt a virtue leave Him. (Mark 5:30) Virtue is power. But you say to me, “I don’t have to be a holy person, Jesus paid the price of my sins”. That is true but he also told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11).

So what are we to do with these besetting sins that give Satan an opportunity to steal our identity, blackmail short circuit and rob us of our power as Christians? I believe the first step is with our will. We must ask God to give us the will to turn away. I prayed for two years for the desire to quit smoking. Even though I knew smoking was bad for me; I did not have the will to quit. I was a slave to this sin. Smoking was an addiction that owned me. The second step is what Psychologists call providing a replacement behavior. For example in Alcoholics Anonymous the expression is, “Don’t pick up a drink. Pick up the phone.” In the case of the seven deadly sins, there are also seven corresponding virtues. The prescription is to practice virtues that work against the entrenched sins. I believe that is why St. Paul listed the Fruits of Spirit following the sins of the flesh in Galatians. For example, if you are someone afflicted with hoarding behavior, the most freeing thing you can do is to give things away. You are replacing greed with charity. 

In a portion of our Gospel lesson today, we hear, “In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.’” (John 2: 14-16) 

St. Paul said, “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1st Corinthians 3:16-17) 

What will Jesus find in your temple? What must be cast out and overturned. What idols must be thrown down? Is your house a house of prayer and repentance or just a container of disordered affections?

I believe many Christians see themselves as imposters and powerless. It may be because they have secret sins that Satan exploits. They have asked for forgiveness over and over yet remain captive of those sins. These are besetting sins that keep us from progressing as Christians. These secret sins keep us from being a holy people. We must ask God for the will to resist these sins and seek a virtuous replacement. Brothers and Sisters, the Kingdom of God is an upside down Kingdom. The weak are strong, the last are first. The foolish are wise and the poor are rich. To rid ourselves of these sins, we must do the opposite. 

I would like to conclude with a prayer from St. Ignatius from his Spiritual Exercises.

“Soul of Christ sanctify me”

Soul of Christ, sanctify me

Body of Christ, save me

Blood of Christ, inebriate me

Water from the side of Christ, wash me

Passion of Christ, strengthen me

O good Jesus, hear me

Within thy wounds hide me

Permit me not to be separated from thee

From the wicked foe defend me

At the hour of my death call me

And bid me come to thee

That with thy saints I may praise thee

For ever and ever.   Amen.

Bishop's Note: The Apostles’ Creed

Bishop Eric Menees

Dear brothers and sisters, 

I pray that this Bishop’s Note finds you safe and well! Today we are continuing our examination of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer’s Pastoral Rites section. Last week, as we examined the Burial of the Dead we looked at the lessons and the sermon, today we look at the creed.

Almost every time we gather for Christian worship, an important part of the service is the congregation together confessing our faith in creedal form, but it’s not always the same creed. Most of us are familiar with the Nicene Creed each Sunday, but it may surprise you to learn that creed is only confessed during the Eucharist when it’s Sunday or another major feast day. The Nicene Creed was written in 325 as a statement about what the church as a whole believed. For that reason, it’s confessed on the major days the church gathers, not only as a statement of what the church as a whole believes but what we as members of that body believe.

The Apostles’ Creed was first put together before the Nicene Creed, but wasn’t written down in its current form until the 4th century. While the Nicene Creed was created as a creed for the church as a whole, the Apostles’ Creed began as a creed for individuals. Originally, this creed was confessed by people about to be baptized, and it was taught as part of their formation for baptism. This was usually the first creed a Christian confessed.

To this day the Apostles’ Creed is used for baptisms, and that’s why it’s also used for funerals. It’s a reminder that the person being buried has been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection as well as the promises and the hope that brings. It’s one of a number things in the burial that point to the resurrection, like the paschal candle and the color white which is also used for Easter. It’s not only a reminder of the promises the person being buried was baptized into, but that all of those confessing the creed were baptized into those promises as well. Confessing this creed expresses our hope in the resurrection.

I pray you all a blessed Third Sunday in Lent!

The Officiant invites the people to stand and says

Let us confess the Faith in the words of the Apostles’ Creed:

Officiant and People

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit

and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven,

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.